VR Focus: Learn Star Trek’s 52-Year History At The Roddenberry Nexus. “Star Trek fans might be enjoying some gameplay sessions on Star Trek: Bridge Crew The Next Generation DLC at the moment but those interested in learning about its history can do so in a new immersive way today. Sansar and Roddenberry Entertainment have collaborated on the Roddenberry Nexus, a portal into the Star Trek universe where fans can see the best of Roddenberry’s science fiction properties.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

EFF: Transparency Win: Federal Circuit Makes Briefs Immediately Available to the Public. “In a modest victory for public access, the Federal Circuit has changed its policies to allow the public to immediately access briefs. Previously, the court had marked briefs as ‘tendered’ and withheld them from the public pending review by the Clerk’s Office. That process sometimes took a number of days. EFF wrote a letter [PDF] asking the court to make briefs available as soon as they are filed. The court has now changed its policies to allow immediate access.”

New York Times: Autoplay Videos Are Not Going Away. Here’s How to Fight Them.. “You’re probably familiar with this horrendous experience: You are perusing a website, and suddenly an annoying voice or unfamiliar music blasts through your speakers. You wonder, where is this coming from? You scroll up and down the webpage only to realize that a video is playing without your consent. And the noise polluting your ears is coming from an ad preceding a video you had never clicked to watch.”

MakeUseOf: 7 Google Calendar Tips for Better Time Management in the Office. “Google Calendar is an essential app for anyone who needs to manage their time. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working, studying, or even trying to organize a party—the app will help keep you on track. If you work in an office, or just want to improve your time management skills, there are a few Google Calendar features you will find handy. Let’s take a closer look.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNET: MySpace turns 15: Looking back at a pre-Facebook world. “Fifteen years ago, on Aug. 1, 2003, a man named Tom Anderson launched one of the most popular social networking sites of its time. Known as MySpace, it went on to earn $800 million in revenue and generated 4.3 billion daily page views in 2008. Eventually, the site would be usurped by Facebook as the largest social networking platform, but from about 2005 to 2009, MySpace was the place to be on the internet.”

Bloomberg: Competing With Google Isn’t Scary When You’ve Done It Before. “Fighting the dominance of Google, Microsoft Corp., and Apple Inc. is a battle many smaller companies lose. But for Jon von Tetzchner it’s ground well-trodden. The Norwegian entrepreneur co-founded the company that developed the Opera web browser in the mid-1990s – then competing with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and industry leader Netscape Navigator – which made its debut on the Nasdaq Global Select Market last week.”

NBC News: I stopped Googling everything, and this is what happened to my brain. “You’re talking about movies with friends and there’s this film you must tell them about. What was it called, that one about the thing, you know, with that actor, what’s his name? You grab your phone, get your answer and conversation proceeds uninterrupted. You solved the puzzle and all is well. But what about your brain? Is constantly feeding it the right answer —with your phone being a bottomless Pez dispenser of factoids — making it lazy? Does it eventually atrophy? Who needs an internal memory when we’ve got Siri?”

EurekAlert: Broadband Internet causes sleep deprivation, a new study finds. “About 200,000 working days are lost in Germany every year due to insufficient sleep, with an economic loss of $60bln, or about 1.6% of its GDP, according to a 2016 Report of the RAND Corporation. Francesco Billari and Luca Stella (Bocconi University), with Osea Giuntella (University of Pittsburgh), in a study just published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, find that access to broadband Internet is one of the causes of such sleep deprivation.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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